


Day by Day

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [74]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda is pushed into a waiting cell. The door is shut. The glass is sealed. Wanda is locked up in a cage, ready to be made to dance or left to be forgotten.</p><p>Wanda curls in the corner.</p><p>She knows how this goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day by Day

**Author's Note:**

> CACW gave me many many thoughts. This is one such set, in fic form.

The first day in the Raft they are processed. Wanda has never gone through this herself, but she recalls memories from others, knows how it goes from that. She sees it done to the others, stripped of everything, checked over like livestock, locked into the cells.

They add something special, for her.

A straitjacket. A collar ready to tase her.

The straitjacket she can understand. They know she needs to move to pull scarlet into being and that with her scarlet she can do very nearly anything she puts her mind to. (They do not know she is despairing now and will not try to escape, that she can move her scarlet with the merest twitch of a finger, the greatest swell of emotion. She is not going to tell them.) The collar, though, pulled too tight, enough it feels like she is choking. Wanda wants to _snarl_.

 _I am not an_ **_animal_ ** _._

Wanda is pushed into a waiting cell. The door is shut. The glass is sealed. Wanda is locked up in a cage, ready to be made to dance or left to be forgotten.

Wanda curls in the corner.

She knows how this goes.

Later, in the night, men will come, tripping down the stairs. It matters not if they’ve been here weeks or been here days, matters not if they are experienced or new to the job. They will trip down the stairs to see the trapped heroes. They will taunt them. Laugh at them. Rap on the glass as though trying to make a tiger snarl.

They will get to her, the only woman of them all and a foreigner at that. They will say things to her that are foul. Suggest things fouler. Insult her. Insult Pietro. Insult their parents. Insinuate any manner of things.

Try to make the tiger claw at the cage.

Wanda will not react. Wanda has heard every last thing they could have to say before.

They will be annoyed that she does not react. They will up their game. Clint and Sam and Scott will be indignant, try to draw their fire. She will not react. She will withdraw into memory until the world is but a dream, and do her best to sleep before dawn.

(This is what happens: three men come down to the cell, late at night when Ross is no longer watching over their shoulders. None of them open the cells. They are too chicken for that. All of them taunt them, and save the worst for Wanda.)

(She knows why. She is the only woman. She is foreign. She is the witch. She is curled small in the corner already looking defeated and lost.)

(Wanda ignores them. Wanda does not react)

(Wanda sleeps.)

(Wanda does not dream.)

 

* * *

 

The second day in the Raft is bad. The others are greeted by spit in their food. Wanda has to endure being spoonfed.

(Clint is outraged, that they will not give her back her hands even to eat, that they would take even that dignity from her. Wanda does not care. Here, now, there is no point in caring. Wanda watches the person feeding her with the gaze that had scared even Strucker and eats each bite she is given.)

That night, Wanda knows, she will have nightmares. The first day was shock and processing. Today she is aware. Today the collar is choking her every breath. Today her hair is in her face, moving with every careful breath. Today she has _processed_ , and she cannot move her hands in dancing motions to make right what had happened.

Wanda sleeps. Wanda dreams.

Wanda wakes screaming. Scarlet around her, scarlet lashing, and no, she has never really needed her hands for this, they are simply a focus, and she can hear the metal and the glass screeching around her. She can feel around her still, the choking dust, the crushing pressure, Pietro’s arms around her under the bed--

( _dead,_ **_dead_ ** _, crushed by the bed and the stone, her heartbeat alone, echoing against the lonely brick.)_

She can hear Clint yelling, his hands against metal and glass, but she cannot make out the words.

Then the electricity volts through her, and there is darkness.

 

* * *

 

“Get away from her, _get away from her!_ ”

She wakes to unknown hands on her face, pulling the collar away from her neck, checking her pulse, and Clint yelling at them for doing so. Wanda shakes her head weakly, forces herself upright.

At her neck she can feel painful skin where the collar sent the electricity through her.

“Clint,” she manages, and it is a croak. Whoever was checking her pulse moves their hands, returns with a cup of water. Clint’s voice is heavy with relief.

“Oh, kiddo.”

The hands take the cup away when she has drained it, and she flinches when they return to touch her neck.

“It’s a salve,” they say, and Wanda’s eyes remain fixed on her slippered feet, rather than at whoever this is. She tries not to shake as fingers run over her neck, press against the burned skin, the sores where the collar has rubbed, move her hair to one side.

Wanda’s shoulders are stiff. She has been trapped in this straitjacket for a two and a half days and her shoulders are locking up, her arms uncomfortable wrapped around her as they are. She’s curled like this before, her arms wrapped around her, her knees drawn up, but here, now, she doesn’t have the choice, and can barely move before twitchy fingers would gladly tase her again.

Wanda knows how this goes. Wanda curls in the corner of her cell, and tries once more to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The third day they wake when Ross comes in, neat and smart in his uniform, hat under his arm, mouth in a self-satisfied, condescending smile beneath his mustache. He reminds Wanda of the police officers who came down to the cells after protests, gave the same speech, over and over: _we know best, you are all fools, just obey the law, don’t protest, all will be well_.

Wanda wants to spit.

Wanda doesn’t. Wanda knows how this goes. Wanda does everything in her power to ignore every word he says to them, even the murmured words directed at her that she thinks later may be meant as some form of patronising apology.

Wanda ignores them. Wanda curls in her corner, and withdraws from the world.

She knows how this goes. She has seen memories of others, remembers the cells in HYDRA - not like this, not at all, and left unrestrained bar one incident to prove and gain trust. HYDRA, Wanda thinks, was at least fair in that regard, cruel, yes, wrong, yes, but practical in all their callousness.

Wanda thinks she would rather be back with HYDRA, even though they are Nazis, than here in this cell that tries to pretend to be for her own good. At least, she thinks, with HYDRA, Pietro was there with her.

Now there is no one.

 

* * *

 

The fourth day is the same as the second. Late in the night guards slip down, hurl insults. Wanda does not react. Sam and Clint do not either. Scott glares, and Wanda can see, just watching, that he knows people like these guards well and from experience.

Wanda curls small. Wanda closes her eyes.

She can feel a nightmare, burning in the back of her brain, by the memorial she has set up in her mindscape for her parents, for Pietro. Around her neck the collar is choking and it is all too easy to remember each hard, dust-filled breath they had taken over the two days they had been trapped in rubble with none but the dead for company.

(Wanda remembers the scars on Pietro’s back where supporting beams had cut him open before they had been hauled free. Wanda remembers. Wanda knows how things like this go.)

Wanda curls small. She cannot press her face to her knees - she’d tried that, on the first day, and received a shock for it. No matter that it is a comfort, that her face will naturally fall forward when she sleeps.

No. They do not trust her. They fear her.

 _This is how it will always go_.

The thought is burning knowledge in Wanda’s mind, and beneath her skin she can feel her scarlet raging. She wants to scream. She wants to yell. She wants to send her scarlet spiralling outwards, tear this whole place down atop them.

She could. She has the power. Wait until late at night when the men come to taunt them, wait until no one is waiting warily, fingers on the button to tase her. Flick scarlet out from her fingers, crush the transponder in the collar. Flick more scarlet more freely and rip the collar off. Tear scarlet through into the world, twist it around her arms like ropes of serpents, as though she is hauling a full bucket from a well.

Wanda knows she could do this. Knows she could send the massed coiled power outwards, rip through minds and bodies and metal, make them free or make them dead, whichever comes first.

Wanda could. Wanda won’t.

Wanda knows how this goes.

(Wanda knows what happens if she does this. Death, death in the deeps of the ocean, in the jaws of a predator, or drowned by the waves. Life, chased and hunted, more a criminal than ever, a _monster_ for seeking freedom.)

(Wanda knows how this goes. She is not American. She is Other. She is a She. She has powers she should not.)

(Wanda is a witch. People have always feared witches.)

(Wanda has always known how this would go.)

Wanda sleeps. Wanda dreams.

 

* * *

 

Wanda wakes, silently. Scarlet is stretching out from her in the darkness; she can see its soft glow. Wanda doesn’t move. Wanda can’t move. Wanda stares at the ceiling, tries to calm her breathing, tries not to think of the terror of being trapped beneath a bed with only her brother’s corpse for company.

“Hey.” Clint’s voice is soft in the darkness, soft and gentle. “Hey, kiddo. It’s ok. It’s going to be ok.”

 _No it isn’t_. Wanda knows this. Knows how these things go.

“You’re not in danger,” Clint says. “Just. Tug it back in, ok? They’ll notice eventually, and then you will be.”

This is true, Wanda knows. Under the covering cloth of the straitjacket Wanda tugs the scarlet in, lets the most distant curlicues wither and fade.

“We’re going to be ok,” Clint says, and it’s a lie but it’s a comfort all the same. “I promise,” he says, and Wanda watches the purple orb of his watching mind. “We’re going to be ok.”

He is certain of this. Has some faith attached to something else that they will be free. Wanda too is certain. She knows how these things go.

Wanda curls into the corner and sobs.

 

* * *

 

The fifth day is bad. Bad on so many levels Wanda cannot begin to count. She can taste the tranquilizers in her food, and spits every third mouthful into the face of the one feeding her. They tase her for it - mild shocks but shocks all the same - each time. Wanda doesn’t care. Anything to keep her mind clear, to let as little of the tranquilizers into her body as possible.

Before lunch one of the taunting guards comes down. Wanda ignores him, ignores him until something he says is followed by the collar shocking her.

“No using your powers,” he says, fist against the glass. Wanda glances to him, stares at him with the stare that had scared Strucker, blank and quiet and unfathomably angry. She sighs, looks back at her feet. Wanda knows how these things go.

Thankfully, they do not shock her again.

After lunch, Stark comes in. Wanda can see his mind, pulsing red and gold, not like his armour but like an infected wound, blood and pus and exposed flesh. Wanda ignores him. Wanda knows how this will go.

She knows her cell now, off by heart, but keeps her eyes on it, remembering the precise distances of the metal, the precise glare of the lights. Wanda brands her cell into her brain, just as she had her cell at the castle, just as she had the medlab where they gained their powers.

 _You were supposed to be an ally_ , she thinks. _Even through hatred._ Deep, deep in the dark of her mind, a million memories whisper _traitor._

 

* * *

 

Wanda sleeps. Wanda does not dream. Wanda muffles her scream when the light flickers on to the Captain and the Soldier and the Panther in the room.

She can see their minds - cannot send scarlet out to touch them, but she can watch their minds as they move rapidly around the cell, T’Challa and Steve opening cells, Bucky standing, one-armed in the centre of the room.

It is odd how similar he seems to Stark on his visit, with his arm in a sling, now one shoulder lacks his metal arm entirely.

Wanda watches. Wanda does not move.

Wanda knows how these things always go.

(Rescue failed, rescuers hauled away, people dead, them blamed. That is how it always goes.)

 

* * *

 

When Steve enters her cell Wanda flinches back. It is easy to tuck herself into the corner, duck her head down, shift her head just enough to make her hair fall all around her face, an obscuring curtain.

“Wanda,” he says, and his voice is soft. Through her hair Wanda sees his hand stretching out and flinches into the wall.

“Don’t touch her.”

It’s Clint’s voice, sure and certain and almost harsh. There is a pause. Wanda stays small, tucks herself as much as she can against the wall.

“Hey, Wanda.” Clint’s voice is soft, Clint’s voice is gentle. “We’re gonna be getting out of here, ok?”

 _No we aren’t_ , Wanda thinks. _That is not how this goes._

She sees his hands, archery calluses rough on his palms and fingertips reach slowly for her. _Don’t touch me_ , she thinks. _Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me_.

“Wanda, we have to get you out of that straitjacket.” Clint’s voice is soft. Clint’s voice is gentle. His hands, when they touch the blue cloth over her arms, are so gentle she barely feels them. “Wanda, I need to take the collar off you, all right?”

Wanda looks at him, crouched to one side of her. His eyes are clear and certain, his expression set. Wanda remembers Pietro when they were curled in rubble, his expression so much the same. _You first_ , he had whispered, when light broke through the bricks at last. _You go first_. Clint watches with absolute surety, no trace of fear. Wanda knows why he does not fear her, refusing to let himself.

Wanda can respect that. That, at least, is how that goes.

Wanda shakes her head.

“Kiddo,” Clint says, and his voice is as gentle as the time he’d talked Cooper down from a nightmare when Wanda was visiting. “We’re getting out. T’Challa is offering to shelter us. Please, let me get that collar off you.”

Under the straitjacket Wanda flicks her fingers. Under her hair her scarlet crushes the transponder. Elsewhere in the room the others are being given their clothes, shrugging on jackets. Wanda drops her gaze, looks to the corner, and tries not to flinch as Clint’s fingers deftly undo the collar.

She stands apart as they leave, stiff muscles protesting every step. She can make herself continue though, that is how that goes. Up every stair, through each hallway, past every unconscious guard. It is wet outside, and Wanda does not have to step, only slide sodden slippers over slick and shining metal.

There is a jet waiting. There is freedom, waiting.

 _This_ , Wanda thinks, _is not how it goes_.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please do leave a comment!


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